Tempted and tried...

Back in the 1940s, on country music radio, we were playing a country/Gospel song titled "Farther Along". The lyric said, in part,

Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested, though in the wrong.

Through the years, I've known people who seemed to fit that lyric... good, decent people who were struck by one disaster after the other. People who were good parents, good neighbors, but faced one devastating illness after the other.

But, did you ever know a nation that seemed to fit that lyric?

I do, it is Poland. That nation of good and decent people has never caught a break. Before World War I, their nation was destroyed. After that war, it was somewhat restored. Then came the Nazis. Polish men, intent upon defending their homes marched out to meet the German tanks, some armed with nothing more than pitchforks. Who has that kind of courage, that resolve! My, how I admired those brave Polish farmers.

The Soviets marched through and wiped out the Germans, only to replace them with a new kind of brutality. But the Poles persevered again, finally winning their freedom once more.

Recently, in the process of remembering past Polish heroes murdered by a foreign power, the Presidential plane crashed, killing the nation's president and many other Polish leaders.

Now, a volcano erupts, just in time to halt air traffic and prevent many from attending funeral services for these latest Polish victims of unending misfortune.

Perhaps, as the old country song continues,

Farther along we'll know more about it
Farther along we'll understand why.
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We'll understand it, all bye and bye.

We can hope!